I think the caveat that it hasn't been as influental in AAA games isn't quite fair. The indie scene counts too, and off the top of my head both Shovel Knight and Ori and the Blind Forest are fairly successful indie games that owe a lot to Dark Souls. Heck, the Soulsborne games almost feel like indie games in a AAA skin.

I'm not seeing a big connection there. One game lets you destroy checkpoints to gain treasure but make dying a bigger risk, the other lets you spend a resource to make your own checkpoints. Both interesting systems, but neither really resemble how Souls works. Of course influence on the indie scene is relevant, but I was specifically speaking to games that are actually in the same realm of budget as Souls.